Plant of the Week

 

Prairie false indigo

Baptisia leucantha 
T. & G.
scientific name, 2008
: Baptisia alba (L.) Vent.
other common names: 
large white wild 
indigo, Atlantic wild indigo, white false indigo, white wild indigo
Baptisia: from the Greek, meaning “to dye,” referring to the use of some species as 
a poor-quality indigo dye
Leucantha: meaning “white-flowered”
Legume family: Fabaceae (Leguminosae)

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

This Week in Iowa Nature

The clear cries of killdeer, herring gulls, and ring-billed gulls accompany the spring thaw near larger waterways.

Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar